Under the Ocean and The Monkey Attack

It was a three hour drive to the eastern coast of Bali, to a small dive down, Amed. 

The guesthouse we booked was a little box of heaven—white tile, white walls, white sheets, white bug—net overlooking the ocean, for $16 a night. The draw back of our amazing view was the twelve million uneven stairs to get up to our room. 

Wreck Dive

We climbed down our stairs for breakfast before our fist day of diving. Our host mamma cooked us a beautiful banana, pineapple pancake and a vegetable omelet. We’d just taken our first bite when our dive shuttle pulled up to collect us. Shit! We started gobbling and asked our host mama if we could take our breakfast to go. We said, we just need it now cause we’re in a hurry! She held up some brown paper. Yeah, perfect! Cause we have to run. Then she disappeared into the kitchen. Bellamoon and I looked at each other…She thought we want two MORE breakfasts togo, and pronto! Sure enough a few minutes later she came out with two new pancakes wrapped in brown paper. Shit… Bellamoon stuffed her fannypack full of pancakes and we went off to dive. Bellamoon did a Try Scuba course, since diving was a recreation hobby she wasn’t too sure about and I took my advanced open water course. 

My course consisted of five dives, each focused on building new skill to make you a more competent diver. Our first was a navigation dive, using a compass and counting kick cycles, then a current dive, diving in strong current and not tumbling away. The next day we did a deep dive, sinking down to 100 ft. and then checking to see if anyone is getting loopy on nitrous—nitrous narcosis, then a wreck dive, we went to the famous USAT Liberty, and finally, a night dive, our instructor called our flashlights ‘torches’.

Bellamoon and I grabbed dinner at a beachside warung. While we were waiting for our dinner, we took turns getting up from our table and running down to the water. I ordered an cocktail of Arak, honey, and lemon. It came in a small glass but took me about two hours to choke down. Come to find out, Arak is a local moonshine made from palm sugar. An article explains, “Arak can sometimes contain methanol (also found in paint thinner, wiper fluid, etc) — a highly toxic form of alcohol that causes blindness, coma, and death.” I’m still feeling very much so alive but won’t be drinking anymore arak from now on! 

On our last morning Bellamoon and I both woke up with food poisoning. There’s nothing like leaning over opposites sides of the same bed, throwing up into plastic bags to really bring two people together. We dragged our sorry, sick asses downstairs to wait for our shuttle to Ubud… an hour went by, and then another…it became pretty clear that a shuttle wasn’t coming for us. Our host mamma gave Bella a ride into town to the booking office. Yep, they’d forgotten us. Finally a taxi was send for us. There was lots of moaning and the occasional casual puking from the back seat. 

It was truly the best getting to know Bellamoon better and traveling together for a moment in time. 

Yoga studio

Kaysha made it to Bali!

It is weird being this far from anything familiar and then seeing your favorite walking towards you! She is spending the next two weeks here with me. We got an airB room right next to Ubud’s Sacred Monkey Forrest. Kaysha and I are not monkey fans. Actually we’re pretty scared of them, but this room seemed so cute and we figured it would be a good chance to face our fears!…After spending five nights there I can safely say, we are really NOT fans of the monkey! One day Kaysha walked back by herself. She had a plastic shopping bag, which the monkeys associate with food. They totally swarmed her and tore the bag and tried to get at the random goodies inside! When she finally made it back to our room, monkeys had climbed in through the windows and had rummaged through our things, eaten a whole tube of calendula cream and stollen her birth control pills! 

swim up poor bar

Gado-gado, my favorite balinese meal

We took a taxi 30 minutes out of town to a small art studio to take a batik class. There was a little toddler and his sister were standing in the doorway brandishing a broom at us. Clearly the toy of choice. There were three concrete stalls, each with massive pig. Upstairs was the open air studio. The teacher and his assistant helped us pick out a print. We copied this onto a swath of fabric and traced the lines in hot wax. Then we stretched and dyed the fabric. Finally the wax was removed. The teacher, Wayan, laid the fabrics in the yard to dry. Kaysha and I sat on the second floor, drank tea and watch; a chicken wandered across our batik; the little sister come up and admire the colors and her little brother come and try to sweep them up! 

Kaysha and I checked out of our monkey room at 6:30am. We took a taxi back to Amed where we would catch a fast boat to the beautiful island of Gili Air. While waiting in line to get our fast boat tickets, I saw a little brunette babe sitting on the dock looking out at the water. Was that… no… maybe? Bellamoon looked up and I waved! She jumped up and sprinted over, yelling and we gave each other a huge hug. WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?! All the people around us were awwing and laughing. I was so surprised and happy to see her again! She took the same boat but got off at Gili Trawangan. The small boat was called The Freebird. It played loud, random oldies and pop music the whole trip, the soundtrack started by playing…Freebird. The vessel rigorously crashed through the waves, it felt like driving through a 45 minute carwash. 

The taxi of choice on Gili Air is a small cart pulled by an even smaller pony. These ponies seem to have quite spicy temperaments, spinning carts around in unexpected directions or throwing a pissy back kick into the air. We opted to walk to our little bungalow on the west side of the island, a stones throw from the rich blue ocean. Lots of sleeping kitties decorate our path. There’s a small lukewarm pool with pink flowering floating on the surface. Life seems to be just fine on Gili Air.